Reunidxs en la Frontera: Understanding the Non-Human Animal as an Intersectional Identity
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2016-06-17
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Abstract
The main objective of this thesis is to interrupt dominant narratives in Critical Animal Studies that ignore histories of colonization, which shape the experiences of people of color and their conversations about non-human animals. Similarly, this project critiques scholarly and political spaces that make the non-human animal invisible. The idea is to begin thinking about non-human animals in relation to human oppression, especially while learning how both are informed by the concept of the human. Furthermore, my focus is to learn from the oppressed position of people of color as a method of understanding and viewing the complex interweaving relationships of non-human animals in laboring and exploitative systems. Conversely, however, I wish not to focus solely on the negative features of subjectivity, but more so on aspects of survival and resistance. By tracing the history of Spanish colonization and the different modes of Native survival, I ask us to think differently about non-human animal subjectivity in the context of animal husbandry. Additionally, I analyze political and academic spaces and their connections to discourses on speciesism and racism. Alongside broader decolonial and post-humanist work ---personal, activist, and academic---, I have included a veganized native recipe that reflects the complexity of hybridity in colonized subjects. Through personal narrative, I bring into dialogue the voices and experiences of people of color with non-human animals with the goal of creating a space for these conversations. The methods employed in this thesis include historical analysis, cultural interpretation, and story telling.
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colonization, intersectionality, non-human animals, speciesism, racism, laboring bodies, survival, resistance, worlding, animal husbandry, food, domestication, decolonization, borderland, latinx, animal rights, oppression, disidentification, feminist care ethics, inclusion, vegan, natives, Mexican, indigenous